melodiesofeternity | The Jewel of Jewels

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The Jewel of Jewels

Who: Serge, Corrin, Kid, Frisk.exe, Klonoa
When: February 2nd
Where: Curti Centre, the Dream Width
What: Serge and company play Find the Macguffin.
Warnings/Notes: The plot of Chrono Cross.

Here he was again. Other people had wanted to help this time- not just Kid and Corrin, at least, but... in spite of everything, he'd sent out the message asking, when he'd been told that something else of his had been found.

Not 'his', that much he knew, but rather the other Serge, the one he'd come to think of as 'Kid's Serge'. He was apprehensive, though. If there was another memory he'd be forced to relive, would he lose control again? Would Lynx show up? These were all questions in the back of his mind as he waited in the airship hangar. Not the Phoenix this time, Mochi had offered but he'd refused- Happily, someone a bit saner was available and willing.

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Corrin can't help but be amazed at the sight of the...castle? Facility? City? It looks so old and yet so new at the same time, in a way that shouldn't be possible. She readies her sword as they approach the robots, expecting a fight when they try to pass through, and yet nothing happens. Strangely, the fact that they've avoided a fight doesn't help put her at ease.

As they take in their bearings however, Corrin approaches Kid. "Hey." She says quietly, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. "That...jewel?" She asks,unsure if that's what the thing actually was but finding no other descriptor that fits. "-In Serge's rift. You know what it is, right?" Corrin's tone isn't accusatory, merely inquisitive. "What are we dealing with? Is it...dangerous?"

Serge stops, looking down at the blood on the concrete, frowning and bending to touch it with a gloved fingertip. "It's still wet. This has gotta be pretty recent, someone's just passed through here and they're hurt."

He straightens, opening his mouth to say something. "I don't really like it, but I think we've got to..."

Serge... A voice, faint and feminine, and hauntingly familiar, just on the edge of perception.

He trails off, looking at Kid. "Did you... say my name, just now?"

Chronopolis. The word stuck with Kid too, though she couldn't place it against any memory she possessed. Her brow was screwed into something akin to confusion the entire time they made their approach, unmoving even as they approached that appeared to be the entrance.

"Huh?" she seems to finally hear Corrin, her expression softening just a little at her friend's question, and lowering her voice as she offered a reply. "Yeah, that was... the Frozen Flame, it's gotta be." Though she'd never seen it with her own eyes, it couldn't be anything else. "The legendary treasure..." one she'd been searching her whole life for. But, was it dangerous? She had no earthly idea, which was answered with a simple shake of her head, and a quiet, "I don't..." think so? Know? Have any idea how to even begin explaining?

But that was just as Serge addressed her, and so she looked over his way. "Wasn't me," was the simple answer to that, but a glance back over at Corrin had her asking silently with a worried look about her— did you hear anything? She sure hadn't...

Serge frowns, looking around. "No, I swear I heard your voice just now, or at least someone who... sounded like you..."

Something pulls him forward, towards the massive building at the center of the compound. There are others- shorter towers, dwellings possibly- but the central compound somehow... draws all attention in. The droplets of blood, one every couple dozen feet or so, seem to lead toward it.

Come to me, Serge...

"There it is again," he mutters. "Like you, but it's... It's almost like you with a different... accent? Like the same tone, but it doesn't feel right- I'm not making any sense. You looked like you knew what that thing was, Kid. Is it... something important?"

Corrin sees Kid look back at her, and shakes her head in response. No, she heard nothing. And yet Serge, it seems, continues to. Her initial thought is that it might be Kid's older sister, the one she told Corrin about after the first trip, but...no, Kid was adopted like her. Can't have been that, if the voice was the same.

Kid had only started to answer about the Frozen Flame, though she seemed uncertain as to her response. But now with Serge asking, Corrin turns her attention elsewhere. She looks at Klonoa and Frisk. "Let's keep an eye out; we're pretty open out here and I don't like it." Just because that one robot let them pass, she's not willing to bet any other robots-if there are any-will; besides, something made that bloodstain and it must still be around given how fresh it looked.

Like you, but different... For some reason she didn't understand, Kid's hand went to the amulet, secured in her pocket. Maybe she was just trying to ensure it was still there, or maybe something else, some unknown force guided her to it...

"It's... the ultimate treasure," she's looking down, focusing on those spatters of blood. "I've— been searchin' for it me whole life... But no one's ever seen it. They say it can grant wishes, maybe even... make a person immortal..." There was more to it than that, not anything she could put into words, but something... she just seemed to know somehow.

Could it be the flame itself was calling out for Serge? No, that was stupid... wasn't it?

"Corrin's right. Let's just... keep movin'." They wouldn't find any answers by simply standing still.

Serge frowns. "If that's true... I mean, why would it come to me? I didn't have this, did I?" Serge turns, looking up at the massive building before him... and walks forward, through the open doors.

Inside, the place has a similar feel, almost, to the Curti Center. The air of a research center of some kind, with plasma screens on several walls, devoid of power. A marble statue of a spectacled woman with arms outstretched stands at the center of the entryway, a face that Kid would know all too well- with a plaque at the base, reading in faded words:

MAY THERE BE EVERLASTING PEACE
FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.
2400 C.E.

Serge frowns. "Is this... from the future? I thought the calendar in El Nido had the year as 1020, or something like that..." There are robots, too, around the place. All seemingly powered on, but all silent, unmoving. "Okay. So what's the deal with this place, it's got crazy technology and a plaque that dates it to 2400, but as far as I remember, the current date is 1020 in the other Serge's, uh. World. But this place looks like it's been here for thousands of years, and there was that boat on the shore that looked like it was handmade with traditional implements- I'd know, Dad used to make canoes just like that. This is just... really friggin' weird..."

Edited 2019-04-29 14:13 (UTC)

A shake of the head is to answer his first question— as far as Kid knew, the other Serge may have only heard about it from when she had first mistaken the Dragon Tear for the thing back in old man Viper's manor. The thoughts are weighing heavily on her mind as they press on, squinting at those blank screens as they approach...

"No way..." she breathes, looking up at that statue. "That's—" Sis?! But 2400 CE how could that even... She'll take a moment or two to try and digest this, pressing her lips together as she strains to try and untangle the stories she'd heard Lucca tell her in the past. But those had just been stories... hadn't they?

"No, you— yer right. It should only be about 1020..." There was something more fishy than just that boat going on here.

"Okay, so... we've established that it's only 1020. Yet here's this plaque from like 2400, but this place looks like it's old enough to be ruins, but it's being... maintained, I guess, by all these robots. But there's statues of people here, so... where are the people? What happened here..."

The hairs on the back of his neck are standing on end, the faintest sense that there's something- something important that he's forgetting. Something on the tip of his tongue.

His attention is diverted, however, by the sound of voices, echoing a fair distance down the hall at the far end, out of sight.

"Hello?!" His voice echoes off the walls, but there's no response, just the continued sound, snippets of an argument of some kind.

"-he won't make it a little longer Miguel, I'm done arguing-"
"- not making sense, it's like you've been drunk ever since-"
"-explain why, I just need to-"
"-to yourself, Wazuki!"

Serge stops, eyes wide for an instant. "Waz- that's my Dad!" He's running, then, having not even realized he'd started moving, sprinting towards the source of the noise, through the doorway at the other end of the hall.

She can't help it. Slowly, she approached that statue to lay a hand on the plaque while Serge tried to piece the impossible together, torn away only by the sound of the distant voices. Kid's looks up, and around the room— knowing she probably wouldn't find the source but her ears perking in their direction all the same.

"Wait, yer—?" Did he say dad?! More importantly, there he goes! "Serge!" She takes off, sprinting to catch up and trail at his heels. This place was freaky enough— and getting separated seemed like one of the worse options on how they should proceed, really.

But— how could his father have been wrapped up in something that involved Home World...? "Wait up, would ya!"

Talk of different eras is hard for Corrin to parse when it's not her world so she mostly leaves that to Kid and Serge to figure out, keeping an eye out with the others. Whatever the deal with this "Chronopolis" place is, it unsettles her to no end. The entire place feels unnatural to her, and it keeps the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

When Kid approaches the statue, Corrin goes with her, keeping her hand on her sword the whole time. Something about the statue has really caught her interest. She glances at the inscription, up at the statue of the woman (no one she recognizes, of course), and then back at Kid. "Kid?" She asks quietly. "What is it?" Something about the statue has really captivated her. "Do you know who that is?"

But then Serge is talking about hearing more voices, including that of his father-or at least a version of his father-and he's off and running, with Kid hot on his heels. Naturally, Corrin is not far behind, quickly motioning Frisk and Klonoa to follow her.

"Serge, wait up!" She calls. "We can't risk getting separated!"

Klonoa has been having a very poor time of things so far. After the water debacle, he's barely said a word this whole experience, but now with the rest of them running, he can't help but try to keep up.

"Serge, wait for us! We'll come with you, but if you get out of sight.. We don't know the layout of this place!"

He's been getting a strange sensation from this place. Sort of familiar... and sort of not. Unease from something he doesn't quite understand--something he doesn't feel very often.

Serge has enough presence of mind, it seems, to slow down, at least- for the others to catch up. But he doesn't wait long, passing through the darkened doorway into another room, an atrium of some kind, with many floors, a single elevator dominating the center, lit by red emergency lighting- and serge yells out at the sight before him, of doors sliding shut.

There's the briefest glimpse of a man with blue hair, the exact same shade as his own, blocking a much shorter man with red hair from entering the elevator, the latter looking worried, the former looking slightly distant, but determined- and clutching the limp form of a child, heavily bandaged, dressings soaked through and dripping blood... a child with blue hair. And then the elevator descends out of sight, leaving the room dark once more.

The world seems to shimmer, for a moment, thoughts racing through his mind. He'd been here, unconscious, dying- that was why he didn't remember. But dad had been, and-
"Miguel. That's... No, I met him. Or Serge did- he was..." What was the relation? There'd been a girl, not Kid, who'd been important-

My dear Leena... may you live in a happier tomorrow.

"Wazuki and Miguel, Leena's dad, they... they were friends. Serge- other-me, got... hurt. Bad. They tried to sail for Marbule, but there was a storm and they got blown off course, to..."

More memories, flickering past like whispers as he hisses in pain, wincing-
"That fire lies hidden in the Sea of Eden-"
"-wasn't called the Dead Sea-"
"-the Frozen Flame has chosen-"
"-Lavos-"

"That child... That wounded child... bring him to me..."

And then the room is silent once more, leaving only the five of them and the stranger with red hair, looking worriedly up at the darkened ceiling, as Serge tries to catch his breath. "I think... we have to get down there. It's important. I think the way out is... at the bottom of this elevator shaft. With my father... with me. Any ideas?"

She only skids to a halt once she's alongside him again, watching as the scene plays out in front of them— the two men and a wounded child. When the pair of blue disappear, it was only then that she noted the heaviness of her own breath, the way her shoulders rose and fell.

Kid hesitates at first, as Serge winces— but her gloved hand eventually pats down on his shoulder, an attempt at reassurance that they were all here for him. That he was no longer that suffering child that he had been the first time he'd apparently come here. Her eyes say the words that she'd voiced so many times on their adventures together, in Home World, Another, and Vaikuntha alike— You all right, mate?

And Lavos. Gods, why did that name resound somewhere deep down inside of her?

"Oi," she called out, staring straight ahead, hand still resting on Serge. "Yeah, you—" she called out to the man, Leena's father, was it? "You can hear us, can't ya?" After all, he was least apparition looking person they'd come across so far despite... still being an apparition somehow. "You heard 'im, right? We gotta get down there so get that thing back up here!"

The brief glimpse of the bloody, bandaged child recalled one of Corrin's deepest, most primal fears, especially since becoming a mother herself. The other Serge didn't look much older than Kana, but his wounds were grave. She puts a hand to her mouth in shock with a sharp intake of breath. But then the doors slide shut and he's out of sight. He's fine. He's going to be fine, she knows. She's seen memories of this other Serge later in life. He's going to make it.

With a shake of her head, Corrin forces herself to focus on the matter at hand. As Serge-her Serge-doubles over in pain, Kid is quick to check on him, so Corrin contents herself with trying to sort out the cacophony of voices that brought on the attack. The Sea of Eden? The Dead Sea? One of those places sounds pretty good...the other, not so much. The Frozen Flame is the artifact they're trying to retrieve, according to Kid. But what the heck's a Lavos?

Ignoring Miguel, since Corrin isn't sure if he can in fact see them, she instead approaches the closed elevator doors. "Okay, there must be a panel or something, right?" She asks. "Something we can use to call the elevator back..." She looks back at the others. "If not, maybe we can force the door open and try to climb down the shaft?" Though she sounds like she's not a big fan of that idea, for obvious reasons. For the time being, she focuses on trying to find a button or panel of some sort.

Corrin's efforts find that the door seems to be mechanically shut- it could probably be pried open, but it would take tools of some kind to obtain leverage. There's also a button, the only thing still lit in the room, which responds to her summons with the faint whirrr of machinery as the lift approaches.

Serge jumps, when the hand is placed on his shoulder, but he relaxes again, smiling weakly at Kid. Though, when the red-haired man turns to look at him, he inhales sharply as the rush of memories comes back. They'd fought him. Him and Norris and Radius and Harle- they'd nearly died doing it. Miguel was Leena's father, but he was an enemy, a puppet of FATE through no fault of his own-

"It's alright," comes the soft voice. "You don't have to be afraid here, Serge. It's not your memory, after all."

At first, he's surprised. But then, Lynx had changed subtly in response to Corrin, hadn't he? Maybe it's less like a memory and more like a dream...? "You're confused, and that's understandable. On some level, you remember who 'Miguel' is, and know him to be a puppet of she who is called, 'FATE'. You- or, rather, Serge-in-the-guise-of-Lynx, fought him, and nearly died in the process. All because FATE wanted to keep you from the item she couldn't stand being yours..."

"The Frozen Flame," Serge said, with realization.

"Of course." the man shrugged, leaning against the elevator door. "It's down there, you know. The Flame, FATE, and, I think, your ticket out. I doubt very much that you'll find much in the way of obstacles, it's just a matter of finding your way- it's not you that 'she' wants. But, once you have it..." He smiled wanly. "I don't think she'll be too happy. Tread carefully, Serge. I hope, for your sake, that we don't meet again."

The lift doors open, revealing an interior of polished metal. Curiously, perhaps, no buttons exist for floors below '1'. There is, however, a slot for a card of some kind. Perhaps finding it would open the way- or perhaps they could just climb down.

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The Jewel of Jewels

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wowowow im so sorry guys i thought i had tagged this back o_o

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aughhhh i'm sorry it took so long to tag

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